


Witchward Ho!

by Measured_Words



Category: Warlock (1989)
Genre: Breakfast, Gen, Missing Scene, Road Trip, Yuletide, Yuletide 2010, metaphorical explosions
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-14
Updated: 2010-12-14
Packaged: 2017-10-13 16:22:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/139279
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Measured_Words/pseuds/Measured_Words
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kassandra (with a K) and Redferne (with an R) stop for breakfast in Utah before they hit Colorado and catch up with their quarry.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Witchward Ho!

**Author's Note:**

  * For [mikeneko](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mikeneko/gifts).



> Thank you so much for requesting this fandom! I loved the hell out of this movie, and it was great to have an excuse to watch it a million times, and make others do the same! Like many things in Yuletide, it isn't something I'd have considered before, but when I saw it sitting on the 'requested but not offered' list, I knew I had to do it. It was fate :D
> 
> Thanks to Nary, Hsifen, and htbthomas for beta reading! Any remaining errors are mine.
> 
> Please enjoy, and happy Yuletide!

Which Hunter

After the gruesome murder of her landlord and housemate, Macky at the diner had thankfully given Kassandra some time off to “get her shit straightened out.” It meant that she didn’t have to explain that she wasn’t coming in for a few days because some time-travelling psycho had whammied her with an aging curse, and that now she was off on a road trip with another time-travelling nut to recover a plastic bracelet. Despite his manhandling of her when he first showed up, Redferne hadn’t actually murdered anyone (she didn’t want to think about the bite marks on Chas’s neck the cops had mentioned, or the omelette, or the flying potion…), and he wasn’t cursing her with anything much worse than his desperate need for a bath.

She looked over at her companion, who was scowling dourly at the Utah landscape as they sped westward in the last general direction indicated by the witch compass. They’d been driving for about three hours now, and she was starting to realize that she hadn’t had anything to eat in what might as well have been twenty years. Sleeping in the car the night before had also taught her that the bladder of a sixty-year-old woman wasn’t designed for long stretches away from a bathroom.

“Say – you hungry?”

Redferne eyed her suspiciously. They’d stopped for lunch yesterday in Las Vegas, and hey – how was she supposed to know the place would have topless waitresses? She’d thought his head might explode.

“Look, we’re in Utah now. These folks are so puritanical they’d put your lot to shame. Except for the multiple wives part, I guess.” She glanced over and, yes, he was now giving her a horrified look. “Kidding!” Her grin was probably not particularly convincing. “They made that illegal ages ago. Anyway - next place we pass with food, we’re pulling over. You can get your witchy bearings, and I’m gonna grab a bite to eat.”

Her companion nodded, casting his gaze back out the window. “Aye, as long as it nae staffed by harlots, and it is quick enough – the Warlock will not stop long for anything, unless it be further wickedness.”

They pulled over at a truckstop about half an hour later and she hauled herself out of the driver seat. Everything felt heavier, and just trying to stretch out the kinks from driving made her joints hurt. Being old sucked – not that it was going to be a problem for very long if they didn’t catch this guy soon.

A couple with a pair of kids in tow came out of the restaurant, giving the new arrivals the odd looks they surely warranted. Their relatively wholesome appearance seemed to reassure Redferne somewhat, and he tucked the compass box under his arm and headed to the door. Proving that he wasn't a complete barbarian, he even held it open for her as she shuffled inside.

The waitress showed them to a table near the window, poured them each a glass of water, rattled off the specials, and left a set of menus. Redferne started setting up the compass, ignoring everything else for the moment.

“I’ve gotta hit up the ladies room. You just… do your thing. Did they have menus back in the seventeenth century?”

“I’m sure they’ll not be beyond my ken,” he answered dryly without looking up.

Sixty looked pretty horrible in the daylight, no joke, and the grimy diner bathroom did nothing to help the impression. She tried to console herself with the fact that at least she’d kept her figure, but kept it for what? Redferne? Yeah, right – maybe after a shower and a shave and… delousing that fur. He did have nice eyes though, she supposed, in that sort of psychotically-intense way.

“Stockholm syndrome,” Kassandra muttered, hating the rasp in her voice, “That’s all that is. Get my bracelet, get back my life, get outta Dodge. He can even have the car.” Turning from the depressing sight in front of her, she made her way back out to the booth.

“He’ll need stick close to settlements, so like as not he is following the road…” Redferne was talking to himself, blue eyes fixated on the needle full of diluted witch blood. She’d notice he did this: sometimes it seemed like he might be addressing her, but judging from the looks he gave when she tried to interject, she guessed not. With a quiet sigh as she slid herself carefully into the seat opposite, he looked over at her and shook his head. “East still. East-north-east. I think we’ll not catch up until he stops.”

“Where is he even going?”

“I cannae say.” He looked perplexed, scowling back out the window as though he might catch a glimpse of blonde hair streaking by in the distance. The waitress reappeared, holding her pen over her order pad and giving them each a solid looking over and a quiet ‘harumph’ of disapproval.

“What’ll it be, folks?”

Kassandra looked down at her unopened menu, then back at the waitress – she knew that look. Grumpy resignation: when you know the best you can hope for is a good story to bitch to the coworkers about later. On the other hand, this chick hadn’t been granted her forty years overnight, and LA saw a lot of pretty strange customers. Sympathy wasn’t something that she was feeling too strongly at the moment. “Coffee to start,” she quipped, glancing down at the all-day breakfasts and considering.

“Aye, coffee. And your special, with the bacon.”

It was a little surprising sometimes how little Redferne seemed to care that he’d been whisked three hundred years into the future: he just took everything in stride. That was confidence for ya…. or obsession. The only thing that had seemed to raise his interest much at all was the radio, and even that just for a moment. It was, she realized, the only time she’d seen him smile. But Puritans were known for their fun-hating ways, so maybe he was just typical? She kind of doubted it. “That sounds good to me.”

“That’ll be right up.” The waitress returned Kassandra’s fake polite smile and slipped away.

“So, they had coffee back in the 1690’s?”

“And cream too, if you can imagine,” he retorted. “Perhaps, were there not more important matters at hand, I might be moved to marvel more at the changes wrought by passing time.”

“Well, I ain’t complainin’, if it means you’re gonna can track this guy all the faster. So, he’s headed east, we don’t know where…. Why?”

Redferne shook his head, that serious look on his face. “It matters not. I will catch him, and see him sent to Hell to burn, as he deserves.”

“That’s rad and all, just – if we knew what he was doing, it'd be a heck of a lot easier to find him…” Kassandra didn’t add ‘in time,’ but she was sure it was written in all the heavy lines of her face. She shouldn’t have looked in the damned mirror.

“Aye.” He took her hands, brow furrowing in concern, his blue eyes burning into her own. “We will find your bracelet, and see him stopped so he can cause no others harm.”

The moment was interrupted by the return of the waitress with her coffee pot and a bowl of creamers. Redferne sat back, watching her almost suspiciously. After she’d stepped away again, he picked up one of the creamers, eyeing it with hesitant curiousity.

“That’s how the cream comes these days.” She poured one in to her own cup to demonstrate – Redferne peeled back the top of the one in his hand, sniffed it, shrugged, and did the same.

“There’s sugar too, if you’re into that.” The sugar canister was the pretty typical glass with aluminum lid type. It was only about three-quarters full, but his eyes still went wide when he saw it, and wider when he glanced around and saw them sitting on all the other tables.

“This truly is an age of excess,” he muttered. “No wonder, then, that the fiend was drawn here.” Still, he reached for the canister and poured out a small amount onto his spoon, stirring it into the coffee.

“Yeah, like I said, all that shit’ll kill ya.” If he was worried about sugar, she couldn’t imagine exposing him further to the vices of the modern world: sex, drugs, and rock and roll. Vegas had been bad enough without her telling him about the hookers and casinos. She chuckled, but it sounded hoarse, like a cough. “Maybe if we had to stop less we could make up some time? Could we rig up the compass to get readings as we go?” Redferne cocked his head, listening. “He’s still going east, right, so what we really need to know is if that changes. If he stops or cuts south or something, then it oughtta show pretty quick. And _then_ we can stop and do it up right?”

“It must be kept level, so as to spill none of the blood. We have little enough, and it is thin. With the way you conduct your coach, it may prove difficult... but perhaps it can be done.”

Kassandra nodded and sipped her coffee, thinking that it was bitter, and maybe not a great idea to drink if she didn’t want to have to make many stops. “It’s called a ‘car’.” She was sure it wasn’t the first time she’d told him.

“Aye. Car.”

The waitress was back with their food, setting down two plates with tall stacks of fluffy pancakes, with hash browns, bacon, toast, and a small bowl of beans on the side. It looked good, but the conversation was making her anxious to press on, so she dug out her MasterCard while the woman was setting down a tray of jam, butter and syrup, and waved it at her.

“Hey, we’re in kind of a rush here – can we get the bill taken care of now?”

Redferne had his eyes closed and head bent, with his hands held together in front of him. His lips were moving slightly, but he wasn’t speaking aloud, at least. The waitress glanced at him, shrugged, and took Kassandra’s plastic. “Sure thing, ma’am, I’ll get that right back to you.”

“Thanks.” Kasandra ignored her companion’s slightly disapproving look as she tucked into her own dinner without due expressions of godly gratitude. They ate quickly and quietly, with only a slight interruption when the waitress came back with the credit slip, and Kassandra scribbled a fake name – Idont Wannadie – across the bottom. She liked to be creative about it, but her mood was dark. Redferned packed up the compass as she washed down the last of her hash browns with another mouthful of coffee.

Getting up out of the booth was an arduous process – she was stiff again from sitting. Would actually getting old be this horrible? Or would the changes be less noticeable over a span of forty years, so that she’d have a chance to get used to the shrinking and tightening of her muscles, the achiness in her hips, even the way she was having to squint a little to read things close up? Redferne offered her an arm, but she couldn’t tell what he was thinking – that she was doomed? That she was slowing him down?

“Come then,” he said as they reached the car, and passed her the witch compass box. “You rest yourself, and I will see if I can’t find some twine.”

Kassandra eased herself back into the driver’s seat, staring down at the star design on the box cover, and flipping it open. Hopefully, they’d get on their way soon. Hopefully, they’d find that bastard soon, and she could get back to LA and pretend that she lived a normal life where there was no such thing as witches. Watching Redferne pick through the belongings she’d shoved in the trunk when trying to leave Chas’s place, though, she doubted that she could ever be so lucky.


End file.
